May 2010 Meeting &

Plant of the Month Competition

Nomads in Namibia (part1) - Dorothy Minors

We welcomed back Dorothy to give us this entertaining talk. She had gone with her husband Chris to Namibia in the spring of 2006 for six weeks to look for Hoodia.

Namibia is a very dry country and some years they get no rain at all. Woodhoek is the capital in this very varied county with mountains. They found many different Aloe's. They also saw rock paintings with figures on that were a 1000 years old.

Some Hoodia's with seed pods on were spotted. The only moisture they get is the mist etc. Also found were Lithops and Adenium's.

Next went to an area that is not so dry where they found lots of pretty flowing plants. Going north there was more trees and it was much greener. Some typical villages were seen, along with wonderful waterfalls - obviously it was not so dry here.

After this they said goodbye to the others that were showing them around Namibia and so Dorothy and Chris headed south for the second half of their holiday. This will be in part 2 so we must wait till their next visit to us to to see this.

This was a good professional show and well worth seeing. The next day Dorothy judged our annual show at West Kilbride.